A new North Lakes tourist attraction scheduled to launch in the summer featuring an eye-catching replica train is set to create up to 30 full and part-time posts.
The couple behind the project to turn part of Bassenthwaite Lake station into a cafe and woodland walk area are planning to recruit staff for a wide range of roles ahead of the attraction opening around July or August this year.
Simon and Diana Parums have completely renovated and restored the former station and its show-stopping attraction is to be a replica steam locomotive complete with tender, buffet car, baggage carriage and salon which featured in the 2017 film Murder on the Orient Express, directed by Kenneth Branagh.
They will be looking to recruit chefs and kitchen based staff, front of house people for the cafe, a wildlife and events officer, landscaper and a grounds maintenance member of staff.
Thousands of visitors are expected to flock to the attraction every year and will marvel at the amount of work that has gone into transforming the derelict and overgrown station and its platform back to its former glory.
The old platform hedge had grown to more than 50ft high and the trackbed had disappeared completely under a mass of foliage and the edge of the platform was virtually invisible and almost all original fittings and features had been removed, vandalised or stolen.
“We have dug down and found the old track bed and put new ballast and track down,” said Mrs Parums.
”The old station platform has been restored to what it used to be like. We found probably 20 metres of original sandstone edging. It had been completely invisible. We have installed another 100 metres of matching Lazonby red sandstone and it now looks like the original platform.
“We dug out all the vegetation with a mini digger. It was like taking part in an archaeological dig.”
The train was acquired from a specialist haulier in Stoke and the buffet car will be used as an overflow cafe.
Mrs Parums was quick to point out that although the locomotive sits on tracks it had never been a “real” train.
“It has not got a steam capability,” she said.
“Its wheels are fibreglass and it is sitting on old bogies. It moves because you can pull it.”
